Our service area: Renton and the cities around it

4 communities, one local crew. Four cities is a small enough territory to know house by house. Renton is the old one: it was platted in 1875, its population tripled during World War II, and roughly 36 percent of its housing was built from the 1940s through the 1970s. Newcastle began as a coal town, but the homes there now started with the Newport Hills development in 1958 and nearly half have gone up since 2000. Snoqualmie has two kinds of houses and little in between, a group from before 1940 around the historic town and the Ridge neighborhoods built from 2000 on. Maple Valley is the newest overall, with a median build year of 2001.

The farther a house is from the lake, the more rain its chimney takes. WeatherSpark's November averages run from about 8.0 inches in Renton and 8.3 in Newcastle to 8.9 in Maple Valley and 9.8 in Snoqualmie, where the wet season also lasts longest, to the end of May. Wind arrives in the same months: Newcastle's hazard plan says storms that bring trees down come every couple of years, and Renton's notes that some neighborhoods stand entirely within tall trees. Earthquakes are the other thing brick has to survive. Renton's plan records that the 2001 Nisqually earthquake left cracked masonry and collapsed chimneys in the city.

A visit follows a fixed sequence. First the technician inspects the chimney and takes photos. Next you receive what was found and a price for each item, in writing. Work is put on the calendar only once you have said yes to that price. You can pick an inspection time online from the openings shown for your city.